With the recent move to Discord, populating channel-lists with a Worldbuilding section has garnered some great discussion and questioning in an easier format for most! We appreciate the enthusiasm here. In order to alleviate some concerns, requests, and repeat questioning here, I figured an update was in order from my previous update on March 1st with the current Hold on the board section:

With a much-needed Refresh currently on-going, the Worldbuilding team has shifted efforts from reviews and input on personal Worldbuilding projects in order to prioritize and develop some other features detailed by Koop here. Since said Refresh was announced, the Lexicon has taken some first steps in collecting user information, and further discussions of a possible Dictionary to define some AU and user-created terms has came up as a side-project to catch people up on terminology that make come up. The Lexicon (and Dictionary, if it does come to fruition) are some solid foundation ideas for the site, which will only in return improve the Worldbuilding section. Your continued input is appreciated, as it's created some good questions to ask in the future.

That being said, the Worldbuilding team had a brief deliberation after a meeting-of-minds with the rest of the Staff provided, and with issues brought up in each respective section based on the Refresh going on, we felt that Worldbuilding should take the lowest priority in concerns to the functionality and roadmap ahead for the site.

Between developing the possibilities of a Wikipedia addition, Character Creation, the proposed Storyline system on-deck, and improving advertising, the decision was made that our efforts should continue to support the other teams and developments before tackling the additions of the World of Remnant and custom projects. We are excited for the developments occurring here, and felt priority of characters and establishing a solid canon was more important then the creation of custom areas for the time being. Along with the proposed concerns in other sections, we are planing a "Canon First" policy when we reach this Worldbuilding crossing; we had some major undertakings in the past to detail an AU-version of RWBY before Volume 4, and some revelations this season have thrown a wrench into a few things, along with the changing of hands across some projects.

"So what does this mean for me?"

Great question! With the Worldbuilding channel getting active spurts about this topic as of late, this Status Report will also touch on some common questions and breakdown of what all this means to you.

First, the Worldbuilding team will make a news -POST- when the Hold is over.

Discord is great, but news will always be placed in an easy-to-find format, like this! We will pin the post, too!

Second, please keep all Worldbuilding discussions to the #worldbuilding -CHANNEL- on Discord.

We've noticed an issue of 'he said, she said' when it comes to a meeting of minds over projects as of late. Instead of personal direct messages to the staff, it would be much easier for us to see each others input by keeping discussion to the specific channel. This can't really be enforced, since it's up to the users to take an honor code here, but it would be much appreciated if feedback stayed in a public forum so we may find input easily enough.

Third, it is your discretion to work on your Worldbuild project or not.

Despite the hold, we still get asked this question. I've decided to make it a formal point so that we may have a response for this: this is your personal project, not ours. We are currently working hard in the background for this Refresh, and either implementing or changing a lot of things. You should probably have a backup your project in a Document off-site should something happen in the future. What you do and write is your personal work, but please understand that there is the potential we may not use or approve your creation when the section is reopened. It doesn't need to be brought to our attention that you are changing something considering the hold, as this is not the WB Teams current focus. If you are okay with the risk of not having a creation implemented, then knock your socks off. We implore you to treat these as personal projects, and not site projects until staff reaches the point of developing the Worldbuilding section.

Fourth, expect changes and be flexible.

Some initial ideas were tossed around recently, but nothing formal or set in stone. Take it with a grain of salt, as things change meeting-to-meeting. We more-than-likely do not have any sneak peak information, should you ask, because populating the Lexicon and hammering out the Storyline idea is the status quo at the moment. Ideas are around, and it's great that there is an active, creative exchange, but please do not take anything verbatim until we are in a more official window for Worldbuilding.

We appreciate your patience and interest in developing locales for RWBY RPG. Please, if you do feel the creative urge to get involved, help out in populating the Lexicon for the site. Any input or vocabulary submissions are appreciated!